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So last night I went to the Pens game with my good friend Ham Slap. I didn’t know what to expect with the recent injuries to the team and many people joked beforehand that Buffalo was essentially facing the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton baby Penguins. If you missed it, here’s what went down:

Jason Williams: first NHL goal, third star

Simon Despres: first NHL goal, second star

Evgeni Malkin: hat trick and two assists, first star

We also saw Carl Sneep put up his first NHL point in his first NHL game; Marc-Andre Fleury’s 200th career win in net; Pascal Dupuis’ 300th career NHL point; and Brooks Orpik’s 100th career NHL point.

What a night! I can remember seeing some milestones in the ’90s at the Civic Arena but I was much younger then and didn’t fully appreciate them. At that time, I never bothered to wonder what my team would look like without Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Ron Francis and Tom Barrasso. And while last night’s game wasn’t any more important than any other regular season game, I’ll always remember it fondly. After the turmoil of 2007 when Pittsburgh nearly lost this team to Kansas City, I’m glad to see promising young players getting their name on the scoring sheet at CEC for the first time.